The report from the Valencian Academy of Language on the new linguistic criteria that the Valencian Government wants to use for the Administration questions many of the solutions proposed by the PP and Vox Executive. The text, to which La Vanguardia has had access, confirms that some of the linguistic solutions sent by the Minister of Education, José Antonio Rovira, “are separated from the Administration’s own formal record.” Furthermore, others are not directly “explicit in the works of the AVL”, that is, they are not included in the official regulations.
In its general considerations, the document approved by the AVL highlights that the Consell document “eludes not only the explanation of the Academy as a reference regulatory authority, but also the role of this institution in the consolidation of a formal Valencian model.”
To begin with, the AVL considers that it is necessary to correct the title of the document since it speaks of Linguistic Criteria of the Administration of the Generalitat. The academics consider that we would have to speak of “the Consell”, since otherwise these criteria would be applied to the entire Generalitat – including the AVL itself.
“We consider that it is inappropriate to want to extend the application of specific criteria developed by a General Directorate of Educational Planning and Language Policy not only to the entire Valencian Generalitat but also to the rest of the Valencian administrations (provincial and local),” they point out in their report. And they claim: “in fact, many of these administrations have been adopting a language model for years based on the priorities of the AVL, an entity recognized by the Statute as a regulatory authority for Valencian and which has worked since its creation in a approach, recovery and promotion of the Valencian language”.
“They are usurping the role of the Academy and making regulations,” an academic told this newspaper as a general reflection of the proposal of the Government chaired by Carlos Mazón.
In this sense, the AVL considers it necessary to add to the Consell document that “these linguistic criteria will have to be interpreted and complemented in accordance with those established by the AVL regulations.” A way to endorse the authority of this statutory institution.
The Academy also does not like – it is even described as “inappropriate” – that in its defense of achieving a language model close to citizens, the existence of different linguistic registers is “contradicted.” In this sense, they defend the work carried out by the institution to establish different solutions appropriate to each register since a colloquial conversation is not the same as a formal written text and, therefore, the same solutions are not valid for the two communicative situations.
Regarding grammatical recommendations, the AVL considers that it is advisable to follow the solutions that they prioritize. They understand that this “would help remove one option or another from the political framework.” “
Along these lines, the AVL regrets that many of the proposals that “are secondary in the formal records” are prioritized by the General Directorate of Educational Planning and Language Policy or equal to those designated by the regulatory institution. Some examples: màrgens instead of margins; journalist instead of journalist; vore instead of veure; mentres instead of mentre (that); fon instead of fou; and so on up to a total of 11 nuances that appear in the document.
Nor do they understand that in order to satisfy geographically close solutions, others that are “alive” in some areas of the Valencian Community such as Bastant, Tenir, Vener or Casdascú are disregarded.
However, for the AVL the most serious thing is the proposals on grammatical aspects “not made explicit in the works of the Academy” or the attempt to ensure that aspects valid for oral discourses are accepted as good in formal written texts since they understand that “they can create confusion in the user”. In this last section, the use of the article lo, the numeral sixanta, or words ending in -eixement (coneiximent instead of coneixement) is seen as inappropriate. The language of the administration is formal, they reiterate.
At the lexical level, it is regrettable that it does not opt, simply, for the use of the words that the Valencian Normative Dictionary considers “preferred solutions”. “It does not seem convenient that some words are marked over others for non-linguistic criteria”, explains one of the members of the Academy to this newspaper.
A harsh response from the AVL that forces the Government of Carlos Mazón to make a move since introducing a change in criteria without the qualifications of the regulatory institution would cause a head-on collision with it, in addition to an obvious disavowal of it.